Here’s a good thought experiment I like to pose to people…

Let’s say you have a Star Trek style replicator device. This device can read the atomic structure of anything, store it in memory, and then, given any raw matter as input and sufficient energy, create a perfect duplicate of the original object.

Now let’s slaughter a cow. Then take the steaks, and all the other yummy cow bits, we get from our dead cow and we xerox them on our replicator device. And, since the pattern for those yummy cow bits are stored in memory, we can sell those patterns to other replicator owners.

So in the future, whenever we want a nice thick juicy steak all we need to do is dump so garbage in the replicator, punch in our selection on the display screen and, whiz, whir, plop, a perfect steak lies there on the materialization table.

No cow will ever have to die again, ever, for anyone to enjoy a steak (or any form of meat, poultry, fish, etc.).

Is it ethically wrong to eat meat?

Now let’s imagine Great Aunt Bessy is killed in a car accident and leaves her body to medical science. When the scientists are done with her body, one of them gets the bright idea to slice himself off some Bessy fillets and put them through the replicator. Suddenly people all over the world are enjoying Breaded Bessy Patties, Roast Loin of Bessy, etc.

Is it ethically wrong to have Bessy for dinner?

If the replicator seems to implausible, just substitute genetic engineering and cloning for the replicator. We could, theoretically, “grow” steaks in the lab based on DNA samples and stem cells.

The point being, if you see nothing wrong with eating replicated (or cultured) meat then what does that mean for the ethical case for vegetarianism? In other words, if we take killing sentient (or at least intelligent) animals out of the picture, is it still wrong to eat meat?

Mmm. My personal favorite is A New York Bessy Strip with A1 and sour cream on the side…

@neuralgourmet

Honestly, I don’t think it is ethically wrong to eat replicated Bessy. Undesirable, yes, because the social stigma of eating human flesh, I think, still applies. I wouldn’t eat it, because I can’t imagine human meat tastes good. Plus, I’m betting that elderly ol’ Bessy is going to be a bit gamey and stringy. Maybe some meaty thirty-something woman killed in the crash?

Uh, anyway… I don’t see the ethical problem. I could just not be thinking it through, but if I’m eating something replicated, it’s not really her. It’s just molecules arranged to duplicate her structures. There is no and never was any intelligence or sentience to what was on my plate.

Mmm. My personal favorite is A New York Bessy Strip with A1 and sour cream on the side…

@dystressed

it would be absolutely identical to human or beef flesh, and you wouldn’t have either bessie fillets or replicated beef without the original slaughter.

Yeah, but Bessy wasn’t slaughtered, she was killed accidentally in a car crash, remember? And let’s say the original cow (Cow prime?) died accidentally, in a tornado or something. I just don’t see the moral problem.

I can still see health reasons not to eat the replicated meat. It is still high in fat content, would still cause heart disease, contains hormones, can raise your blood pressure, and some think it causes cancer.

Any vegetarians/vegans out there? If meat was healthy for you, and you could eat replicated meat, which wasn’t made from slaughtered animals, would you do it?

@dystressed: Why would you object to genetically engineered/cloned meat? It was never a cow to begin with. Maybe I didn’t make it clear, but I was talking about growing solely the muscle tissue without the rest of the cow attached. Why would that be unethical? No killing of an intelligent creature involved. It’d be the same thing as killing a plant and you wouldn’t even have to kill the original cow — just rub a cotton swap inside its mouth or something.

@awelfe: Aye. I see nothing inherently unethical in the eating of meat, any meat, apart from the killing. So if a method could be devised for producing meat sans killing, even if it meant killing one last animal, then I’d be all for it. And as you mentioned, animals die from natural causes all the time so we can even get around that. Oh, and I should note we’re getting very close to being able to grow meat-in-a-vat.

If we were plant forms rather than animals, we’d be complaining about those unethical cows eating innocent grass. Look, every living thing lives at the expense of some other living thing. When I die, bacteria will eat me. But I don’t consider the bacteria unethical. I can understand objections to the way livestock are raised and slaughtered, but not to the consumption, per se, of meat. I doubt that it is a coincidence that our evolution of large protein-hungry brains was accompanied by our increasing prowess at big game hunting.

Not surprizingly, one of the real horrors in slaughterhouses results from the desire for kosher food. To be kosher, the animal cannot be killed outright, it has to be bled to death. Most slaughterhouses use an electrical device that slams a metal pin into the animal’s skull, to stun it. The animal is then snagged by a moving hook which carries it down the disassembly line. Unfortunately, the animal is sometimes still conscious and writhing around until it is fully bled out. If it weren’t for the demand for kosher meat the animal could be humanely shot in the head. Once again, religion screws up everything.

I would like to see less and less animal abuse and consumption over time- which is exactly what I expect to happen. Although if the human population continues to grow to the brink of homeostasis, every possible food will continue to be eaten out of necessity. But I think we will overcome this problem mainly out of necessity, but also out of real concern for not just the animals’ benefit, but our own as well.

Remember also that our current live-stock dilemmas would not exist if we chose not to selectively breed specific animals for domestic consumption in the first place. I think this problem was most likely unavoidable at some point, but correctable if the majority of us get our priorities straight.

Too many cow farts are a problem, but cattle treatment and over-population are results from multiple ethical concerns: business ethics, healthy and humane treatment of animals, peoples’ rights, species bias, concern for the environment, etc.

I am aware of not blindly following nature and instinct, but the food chain is a reality and so is our physical and psychological entwining and interdependence on living food sources. We sometimes forget we are still an ecological niche and a link in the food chain and are co-dependent on the natural kingdom for our survival, and we are an inseparable part of it all.

It is a matter of constantly trying to better understand how we can live more efficiently, economically and ethically while always refining and redefining our lives as social, sentient creatures.

Right now I am more concerned with why Great Aunt Bessy is killed and how we can prevent it than what we can do with her lifeless carcass once the old hag croaks. I suppose with the advent of cloning and stem-cell research, that ethical bridge is on the horizon and I know many are already weighing in on that problem, but my bigger concern is being able to handle ANY of our problems ethically. If only our morality would progress as rapidly as our technology. And yes, religion is the main impediment to moral progress.

@Jake
I have no way of knowing how reliable the studies are, but the ones that can be found in the literature and on the Web find a 15 IQ-point deficit in persons who were raised as vegetarian children. Apparently developing brains need high-quality protein, which is tricky to obtain without animal-based foods.
On the other hand, vegetarian diets seem to create no cognitive problems for adults who decide to eliminate animal-based foods. Again, the literature seems less than iron-clad. Clearly, more research is needed.
Given the apparent importance of high-quality protein for human brains, I’m leery of any plan for the wholesale abandonment of meat, milk, cheese, etc.
But I do share your concern regarding the treatment of livestock. I used to live in the Carolinas, which are full of horrifying chicken warehouses. I’m told that commercial pig farms are an ecological disaster. Cattle burps (not farts, despite common belief) are a genuine problem with regard to global warming.
All that said, I don’t think there’s an easy answer here. But there is an answer, albeit difficult: There are too many people on this little planet. With a smaller population, we could eat whatever we want and generally have a first-world standard of living if only there were far fewer of us.
That may be an unrealistic goal, but it’s the only one that, in my opinion, makes sense in the long run.
Sorry to be so wordy, folks.

John

Interesting topic and one I think about often. I’m the one that prepares food at home so I’m accustomed to handling meat but I still can’t escape thinking of its source.

@neuralgourmet:

I have to say I thought about the replicator before, but never went far enough to examine replicated human meat. I think replicated cow meat is a step in the right direction. I don’t see anything wrong with the it, but there will always be a level of stigma associated. Same goes for Petri dish meat, I don’t see an ethical problem, but perhaps stigma for some.

As for the replicated human meat, I would personally avoid it, but I can’t think of a logical reason, perhaps the yuck factor. What if Great Aunt Bessy volunteered her flesh to be replicated, would people who would otherwise avoid it, eat it? What if you can replicate the meat without harming the animal (or Aunt Bessy?)

@Andy W:

“Mmm. My personal favorite is A New York Bessy Strip with A1 and sour cream on the side…”

I hope I don’t get marooned on an desolate island with you.

@Elis: While the replicator may never be possible I think we are getting closer to growing meat-in-a-vat. Theoretically there’s no reason any live cells couldn’t be cultured and grown, assuming we know how to tell the cells to become the right kind of cells (i.e. muscle tissue versus skin tissue). Then the problem may be making it have the right taste and texture. So we may need to do stuff like electrically stimulate our meat-in-a-vat to simulate exercise.

As near as I can tell, the stigma you mention, is pretty much the same one that gets ordinarily sane people all up in arms about cloning. They either have religious objections or envision some kind of Frankenstein’s monster scenario. But I think if the meat-in-a-vat is delivered to supermarkets in forms that are recognizable as what they’re meant to replace (chicken breasts, steaks, pork loins, etc.) then most people will adopt it without any problem, especially if it’s cheaper. I think you’ll also see a concurrent luxury market for “real” meat from dead animals spring up.

In the end I think, as long as we want to continue eating meat as a species, that something like this is going to become a necessity. From an ecological/environmental standpoint alone, without even considering ethical problems, meat production at current levels is unsustainable.

What follows is an Andy Rooneyist type rant:

I watched some documentary on TV where the topic was chemical buildup in sea animals. I believe the two chemicals they were referring to was the banned pesticide DDT and some chemical used to make carpet and clothes fabric stain resistant. It turns out, both of these chemicals accumulate in animal/human fat tissues.

The threat of course was in eating larger fish with high concentrations of these chemicals as well as heavy metals. So they did an informal un-scientific test on 5 human subjects. One happened to be a vegetarian and the vegetarian’s appx. 10 year old son. The other subjects were world-traveling meat eaters and US citizen meat eaters. One of the meat eaters only ate fish meat.

The vegetarian and her son had the highest levels of both chemicals. Up to 10-20 times more than all the other subjects. The program didn’t explore why, but I suspect it’s because these same chemicals are leaching their way into our soils and groundwater.

I grew up on a pig/chicken farm. My neighbors raised/milked cows. Edible live meat was all around me on the farm. For kids who grew up in the city, I suppose the knowledge of farm animal conditions and the reality of a slaughterhouse can be disconcerting. But it’s just the way things are. For us humans to live, something else has to die. But that something else can be plants also.

What motivates vegetarians is beyond me. If it’s their health, that’s probably the most noble of motivations notwithstanding the chemicals I mentioned above. Because processed and fat-laden red meat with it’s high saturated fats, salt and cholesterol is really bad for if you believe the medical establishment.

If it’s the environment/global warming, I would suggest they review the petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides copiously used to support their diet.

If it’s the inhuman treatment of animals…well, I think they haven’t spent enough time in nature or haven’t watched enough nature shows on TV where the savagery and brutality of killing and feasting on a living carcass takes place daily without human intrusion.

But on the topic of dinner and religion, something has always baffled me. It seems most Christians are happy to believe their supremely good God has bestowed upon them the “spoils” of the earth to be used (abused) at their reckless discretion. This would imply to a typical Christian to mean that a he should consume and eat whatever available resources and food are available to partake in and that his God would provide the most nutritious, nourishment for a long healthy life.

But the paradox occurs when we reflect on what we’ve learned in the last 50 years of nutrition and healthy lifestyle. We’ve been told by nutritional experts that a balanced diet is what we need: Grains, vegetables, fruit, fish, dairy and meat. Our government gives us food pyramids and our restaurants give us balanced meals. In our American lifetimes, we’ve seen abundance beyond comprehension to those living more than 100 years ago. We have produce shipped in from Mexico. Fish from Chili and China. Veggies from around the world mystically find their way to our neighborhood Walmart’s waist-height shelves to be plucked with no effort except to get them to our fridges.

Do you see where I’m heading? Look back prior to 50 years ago. Look to the last 6,000 years on this planet in countries around the globe where famine, seasons, and soil conditions were not consistent with a daily balanced diet. Look to the period before the domestication of animals and before the knowledge of agriculture.

So here’s the rub. Either the nutrition experts are wrong and we don’t need a balanced daily diet…or, God’s wrong. Or God is incredibly insensitive, cruel or inconsiderate to let thousands of years elapse with the full knowledge that those poor bastards desperately trying to survive on seal meat through the winter in Siberia aren’t going to have fresh fruit and veggies on the dinner plate for 5 months out of the year. Or that those African natives having rotting elephant on barbe are going to be too ill to stumble around looking for berries to round out their carb intake for that meal.

Then there’s that curious lack of any specific mention of dietary considerations in the Christian holy book except for stupid shit like exhortations against shellfish. And there’s the unfair geographical distribution of “healthy” foods. The Mediterranean got olive oil. The Chinese got Green Tea. The equator nations were given the year-round fruits. Some tribes were bequeathed with desert, drought and killer spiders/scorpions while others near the poles were given the Omega3-heart-healthy salmon with ground too frozen for green leafy lettuce.

It’s only been in the last 100 years that this Christian God has given us the distribution system and means to even think about carb/fat/protein percentages per meal. Prior to that, I suspect people would go entire winters living only off slabs of the wilderbeast cut from the frozen carcass buried in the snow outside their cave.

So I’m confused. Are the Atkins Diet folks right and we were destined to survive on meat alone. Or or the nutritionists right? And where does this leave God and his wishes? Does he care about our health, happiness and longevity or is the first one to the pearly gates the winner?

So I thought about the whole consideration for a healthy lifestyle vs a sedentary one. For the past 4 months, I’ve been unemployed and living frugally. I didn’t go out much so I saved on gasoline, hot water (fewer showers) and laundry. I ate at home and bought inexpensive foods like hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese so I saved on my grocery bill and dishwasher (used fewer dishes). So the environmentalists would applaud me for minimizing my impact on the environment.

However, my doctor slapped me for a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure, high cholesterol/triglycerides, overweight, etc…. And Obama said I was hurting the economy cause I didn’t buy anything. In the interest of adding a few years to my life, I made some drastic changes.

I now work out daily at the gym. Go bicycling, bought a kayak, eat out occasionally, bought some gym clothes and eat much healthier foods. I lost weight, improved other health indicators. My doctor’s happy. And I’ve made Obama proud. But the environmentalists are pissed. Now I’m doing more laundry, using more water washing veggies/fruit and dirty gym clothes, taking more showers, using more gas driving more places, running up credit cards….

Bottom line, a healthy lifestyle is incompatible with the “isms”: environmentalism, theism, vegetarianism.